"Drowned" from 12/12/99 @ The Hartford Civic Center

Attendance Bias

In 1999, we were all high school juniors, 17 years old and getting our licenses. My friend Mike was given permission to borrow his parents’ car for the show and we got our tickets. However, roughly 48 hours before we were due to leave, Mike’s parents had a sudden change of heart and told him that he was too new, too young and inexperienced, to drive three of his friends to Hartford from Long Island. Now, at 39 years old, I totally agree with them; But at the time, I flipped out. This was putting a death knell in our long-awaited plans. From all of the tapes I listened to, all of the books I read, and all of the discussion I had, it seemed to be intrinsic to the Phish experience to travel for shows. There is joy to be had for a hometown show, but traveling far with your buddies to a new destination is an adventure. All of that excitement that had been building for over a month was just kiboshed with one phone call. I’m sure my self-righteous, entitled 17-year old mouth said some pretty awful things about two loving people who were making the best decision for their kid and his friends.

Regardless, after some shameless begging and angry back-and-forth, we procured Amtrak tickets from Penn Station to Hartford.

We got to Hartford right at the razor’s edge of the show’s start time. I remember that the scene outside was loud and raucous, but not pushy. Apparently, Dave Matthews Band played the venue earlier in the year, and there was a massive riot and fighting between drunken fans and cops during that show.This armed presence caused tension, instead of preventing or abating it. To my memory, there were no issues or violent episodes outside the venue but fans were definitely on edge.

The extra security caused a longer-than-usual wait to enter. We sat down just as the lights went down, thrilled to have finally made it after such trials and tribulations.

All of our difficulties and obstacles overcome, lights go down, and the band opens with…Heavy Things? Even today, that would be seen as a lame move. Back in 1999, when the fans were still getting used to the Farmhouse songs, “Heavy Things” was seen as the persona non grata; it was the album’s single, played five months later on David Letterman’s show and it barely varied from performance to performance. During set break, my friends and I kind of made polite chatter, none of us wanting to admit that maybe that first set didn’t deliver what we wanted. We were too proud.

Soon the lights went down for the second set, and it opened with a 31-minute version of “Drowned.” My Who-loving self went crazy for the novelty of hearing it for the first time, and I was drawn in by the mesmerizing jam that, at the time, may have been the longest continual song I’d ever heard live.

I walked out knowing I witnessed a less-than-stellar show. Aside from “Drowned” there was nothing compelling about this show. The fact that we had gone through what we considered a major emergency just to make it to the venue only rubbed salt in the wound. This was where I learned: no matter what, Phish does what they do. Sometimes it’s great, sometimes it’s average, sometimes it’s life-changing, and rarely-but-sometimes, it’s a disappointment. In the 16 years since this show, I’ve learned this lesson over and over again and am much more mellow about the whole thing (Coventry helped a lot in that regard). But back in 1999, I wasn’t ready for that. I was such an enthusiastic new fan that I was entitled and expected every show to shoot me into the reaches of the universe with unbridled joy. This show brought me back down to earth.